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To say that the adjustment period had been difficult would be an understatement.
It had been three months since Ghost had seen a spark between him and his Sergeant, and three months since the potential of that fire had scared him beyond belief. He was not proud of the way he’d chosen to stamp out that ember. Soap had taken all of his warmth with him when he shut Ghost out in response, perhaps in hopes of rekindling it somewhere new, with someone new.
He deserved that much. He deserved so much more than a ghost of a man.
Despite it all, it was Ghost who had found himself haunted by the other’s presence–or lack thereof. He’d been plagued by painfully vivid dreams, ranging from holidays set in small English towns with Soap dragging him excitedly by the hand, to some of the most gentle yet obscene sex that always ended up with him sticky when he woke in the morning.
Ghost wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand waking up from those lovely fantasies, only to roll over and find the other side of his bed cold and painfully barren. He wanted to drag himself to Soap's door, get on his knees and grovel, beg him to take him back, promise it had just been a sorry attempt at saving his own skin, promise that he loved him and he would not hurt him like his father hurt his mother.
But he didn't. He had made his bed and he would lie in it.
Meanwhile, handling Soap in real life is no easier. They’re separate in most missions now—definitely Price’s doing—and on base only speak if it’s absolutely necessary. And when they do, Ghost is only ever "Lieutenant." Not Lt, not Simon, not anything more than his commander. He’d almost prefer Soap never spoke to him again. Almost.
Ghost had once enjoyed the peace that came with silence, but lately everything is just too quiet, and he too often finds himself at the mercy of his thoughts, and all the memories and flashbacks that carry through unbidden. The silence roars in his ears as it sits heavily in his room at night, an oppressive force bearing down on his already suffering heart. Despite himself, he can’t help but find his eyes following Soap’s retreating form as he wanders corridors with comrades, head always on a swivel in hopes of catching even a fleeting glance of that stupid mohawk and those blue eyes that, even now, still turn his hardened exterior to jelly.
He can’t help but replay that fateful moment in Soap’s room over and over and over again. How blissful he had felt at first, finally pressing his lips to Soap’s own, kissing him so hard and so fervently that the other had made a comment about it being like you’re trying to swallow me whole. The way Soap had given him his heart, placed it still beating in his hands and trusted him to nurture it. The sweet melody of his mewls as he’d come apart in Ghost’s hands, desperate and needy and everything he had ever wanted. But things Ghost wanted, they always got broken. Everything he had ever let go of had claw marks on it, and he couldn’t allow that to happen to His Johnny, not to the first man he’d ever truly loved. So he had uttered words crueller and sharper than the knives he plunged into enemy soldier’s bellies, and he’d watched Soap snatch back his heart and slam the door in his face.
What hurts the most is that in the field, even now, on the rare occasions they are the ones watching each other's backs, they still make an incredible team. The easy banter doesn’t flow between them any longer, but Soap protects Ghost as vigilantly as Ghost protects Soap.
Ghost tries to be strong, tries to push through, but he’s only a man. A weak one at that. But he was also his father’s son and he would not watch Soap break like his mother had. It was for their own sake: relationships weren’t in the field manual.
Then comes the mission where things go wrong.
A firefight across an abandoned town has their men completely scattered, most of them being evacuated by truck or by chopper, though Ghost finds himself amongst the stragglers, prioritising getting all his men out before escaping himself.
Just as he thinks everyone’s made it out, a headcount reveals that they’re down one man.
The same man whose voice crackles through Ghost’s radio, hushed and panicked. “Captain, I’m pinned and my fuckin’ gun is jammed, requesting backup immediately.”
Ghost is speaking before the words have even fully formed in his mind. “Where are you, Johnny?”
Then he’s running, practically vaulting flights of stairs as he races into the street. Though the radio was meant for Price, Ghost is the only man left on the ground. He’s all Soap has.
As tempting as it is to kick down doors and go storming in guns blazing, based on the way Soap was speaking he hadn’t yet been discovered. The soldiers where he was were few and far between enough that Ghost could quietly pick them off one by one, so that’s exactly what he does. Quick, efficient, silent. His hulking form slinks round corners and ambushes soldier after soldier, in alleys and buildings as he comes upon the one where Soap had bunkered down. As much as his mind screams to go faster, as much as he wants to take off in a sprint, Soap only has one chance, and he can’t afford to ruin it by getting reckless. Thankfully the Sergeant keeps talking, his presence a comforting one in Ghost’s earpiece as he moves closer. While most of the words are just unintelligible Scottish curses, as long as he’s talking, he’s alive.
When Soap goes silent mid sentence, that’s when Ghost panics. His next three kills are messy, but he doesn’t care. He pays the streaks of red and clumps of pink that now paint the walls no mind. Hell, he doesn’t even wait to watch their bodies drop before he’s sprinting up a flight of stairs, coming upon a small room and bursting in.
He barely even registers the man standing in the centre of the room, gun trained on an exhausted, collapsed Soap before his own gun is in his hand and he’s pulling the trigger.
It takes him a second to realise that he’d heard two gunshots.
His blood runs cold and he’s lunging toward Soap before the light has even left the enemy soldier’s eyes, dropping to his knees and grasping at the other’s rig.
“Soap! Soap, how copy?” He defaults to his radio signal in his panic, voice cracking with the strain as he begs for a response. “Are you hurt?” He barks as he frantically checks Soap over. He looks up, meeting wide, startled eyes with his own wild gaze.
“No, I’m good, I'm good, I’m- och- I fuckin’ think I’m deaf, but I’m alright,” Soap strains to speak, swallowing thickly as shaky hands reach up to grab hold of Ghost’s forearms. It’s that movement that gets Ghost to look away from him for a moment, just long enough to see the smoking bullet hole in the floor, inches from Soap’s ear.
Then Ghost is hauling them both to their feet and catching Soap’s face in his grasp, turning it to the side to inspect the damage to his ear: thankfully a minimal amount of blood, probably caused by the sound of the shot rather than the bullet itself.
“I told you, I’m fine,” Soap insists, steadying his breathing, “you got here just in the nick of time.”
“By the skin of my teeth,” Ghost sighs, relaxing slightly, “thought I’d lost you for a second there, Johnny.”
“No way you’re gettin’ rid of me that easily, Lt.,” Soap grins, before he realises what he’d just said. He hadn’t used that shortened honorific in a while, not since Ghost had taken their budding relationship and crushed it beneath his boot. He doesn’t try to decipher the look that flashes behind Soap’s eyes as they awkwardly step away from each other. He doesn’t want to know.
And yet, he can’t ignore the way his skin sings where Soap had held onto him, even through his shirt, nor the way Soap’s own hand twitches, like he wants to reach out again, brace himself against Ghost’s sturdy form. Thankfully, he’s saved by his radio coming alive.
“Soap, Ghost, do you copy? ” Price asks, and Ghost murmurs a confirmation of both of their positions. The relief in their Captain's voice is palpable as his next orders come through. “ Good, glad you’re both in one piece. We’re having issues getting a vehicle to your location, so keep your heads down and hang tight for now .”
“Roger.”
They make their way through the town quietly under the cover of night, bunkering down in an empty building with plenty of escape routes—should they need them—before barricading the door so they can attempt to get some rest.
“I’ll take first watch,” Soap volunteers.
“Negative, not with your ear how it is. You rest up, I’ll look out ‘til morning,” Ghost dismisses, settling himself down on a dusty rug that he shoves against the wall.
“My ear is fine,” Soap argues, “fairly certain it didn’t even pop my eardrum.”
“I don’t believe that. Can you hear anything other than ringing?”
“I can hear you deciding to make my decisions for me, since you clearly know best, as usual,” Soap bites back, a sour edge to his tone.
“I’m just looking out for you, Sergeant. Now lie down,” he orders, keeping his voice soft. He doesn’t want to get into a fight. Not here.
“Please,” Soap scoffs, “the only person you ever look out for is yourself.”
Ghost is glad that Soap turns his back to him as he says that, so that he doesn’t see the way Ghost’s entire body goes rigid, and the way he has to bite his tongue until he tastes copper to stop himself from snapping back.
Ghost may keep himself isolated, but it’s for everyone else’s sake that he does so. He sacrifices his own happiness, his own relationships, all to save others from himself and the inevitable heartbreak that follows.
He looks out for everyone but himself.
Right?
He ponders this thought for a long while, but the sight of Soap tossing and turning drags him out of it every so often, as he struggles to get comfortable against the barely-padded concrete floor. Eventually, after hearing a particularly aggravated grumble from the Scot, Ghost calls out to him, patting his shoulder when the other turns.
On better days Soap would’ve curled up with his head on Ghost’s thigh, but even offering his side as a resting spot seems bold nowadays. As it stands, Soap just looks him up and down, then murmurs, “‘think I’m good, Lieutenant.”
“Oh, come off it Johnny,” Ghost huffs, exhaustion chipping away at his mask of neutrality. He hates that fucking word. Anyone else can call him it, but Soap is different. Soap wasn’t even this distant with him when they were strangers for God's sake.
Soap doesn’t even turn around when he mumbles, “stop calling me Johnny.”
Ghost often wondered if he actually had a heart, but he’s almost certain he hears it shatter when those words reach his ears. “What?”
He sees Soap visibly flinch at the hurt in his voice, but the other doubles down. “It's Soap, to you. I’m only Johnny to people I mean something to.” There’s no attempt to mask the venom that drips from his voice, poisoning Ghost’s blood as his words pierce his skin. All he can hear is the echo of the statement that Ghost had uttered months ago.
"Is it really so impossible for you to understand this meant more to you than it did to me, Sergeant?"
“You mean something to me,” Ghost tries, weakly.
“Do I, now? Well, you had me fooled,” Soap sits up, gesturing with his hands as he turns to face the other. Ghost doesn’t like the cruel sneer that settles itself on Soap’s usually kind face. “Where’s this coming from, Lieutenant? Missing having a fuck buddy?”
Ghost’s blood boils. “You were never just a fuck to me.”
“Of course, of course. So, what was I then?”
Ghost can’t find the words. He’s not sure he’s brave enough to say them anyway. “So much more.”
Soap nods knowingly, still with that sarcastic look, “you know, at first I thought you pushed me away because I’d genuinely overstepped, but after a few nights drunk off my ass spilling my guts to Price, it clicked. You think you know exactly what’s going on in everyone else’s head at every moment. You always think you’re right.”
“It was for your own good. Someone would just end up getting hurt.”
“Someone did get hurt,” Soap growls, standing up and pulling his rig off.
“What are you-” Ghost starts, but he cuts himself off when Soap lifts his shirt, revealing well defined muscles and a litany of scars; the most recent editions being two nasty bullet holes in his side that had not long healed over.
“I’m sure you know where I got these,” Soap sneers again, “Doc told me you didn’t leave my side when I was asleep, even though you’d been nowhere near the mission. You want to know why I got them, though?”
Ghost’s mouth is dry. “Why?”
“Because you weren’t there. Sweeping a building, the Lieutenant I was following called clear, but he missed a hidden room at my back and couldn’t get his fucking gun off in time. Told myself that it would have happened anyway, that it was my own fault for not seeing the bastard either, but after seeing you today, how you fought your way into a building I couldn’t even sneak my way out of, just to get to me,” he pauses, huffing a sigh, “now I know it never would've happened if you’d had my back.”
“Never.” Ghost swears. He hadn’t slept for days after Soap had come back from that mission, and Price had nearly dismissed him for the broken jaw he’d given the lousy Lieutenant who was responsible.
Soap’s hard gaze wavers, and he lowers his shirt again. “You were supposed to lead that mission.”
Ghost’s body goes rigid, his voice tight. “What.”
“I saw the file in Price’s office. You were meant to lead, but you’d transferred to an earlier team a week before.” When Soap next speaks, his voice is quiet, pained. “I thought you said you’d wait for me. But you’ll always be the Ghost, won’t you?”
Ghost wants to scream, he wants to turn back time, he wants to get to his feet and throw his arms around Soap and promise to always have his back, to always wait. He wants to do anything but just sit on the fucking floor, staring like a fucking idiot. He wants to do something.
But he does nothing.
Soap sags, dropping roughly to the floor, putting his back against the wall. “At any point during all of this, did you ever stop to think about how I actually felt?”
“That’s all I think about,” Ghost whispers.
“No, it isn’t. What you were probably thinking was all this sanctimonious bullshit about how I’d be ‘better off’ without you and it was a ‘mistake’ for me to-”
“It was a mistake.”
“It was my mistake to make,” Soap snaps. “Mine. If it was a mistake to you, fair enough, but don’t ever try to tell me how the fuck I feel. I’m a grown man not some fuckin’ wain.”
On better days, Ghost would’ve rolled his eyes and feigned obliviousness to the other’s Scots slang, but instead he just sighs.
“You’re right.”
“Damn right I am,” Soap huffs.
They sit in silence for a while, but when it breaks, it isn’t at Soap’s hands this time.
“I’m sorry,” Ghost whispers. He lets the words hang heavily in the air for a moment, then shakes his head, letting out a soft sigh, “I don’t know how to do this. Any of it.”
“Would it've killed you to try?” The strain in Soap’s voice comes from hurt, not anger any longer.
“What if I made it worse?”
“How can it get worse than this?”
“I could lose you, for good.”
“Keep going as you are, and you will,” Soap huffs, wiping the dried blood from his ear. He stares at his fingers for a long moment, then leans his head against the wall, staring out into the moonlight. “What if it didn’t have to be a mistake, huh? What if you could be happy?”
“I think that’s what I’m most afraid of.”
Soap shakes his head and goes to get up. No. No, no. no. He can’t lose this chance. He can’t let this window close, let them fall back into the silence that’s characterised so many agonising months. He needs to find his words, swallow the lump in his throat and try, for once in his life. For Soap’s sake. For his mother’s sake. He needs to try.
Quietly, almost imperceptibly, he forces out, “is it too late?”
The Scot pauses, half kneeling, “for what?”
“For-” the words catch in his throat, “for us. For me to fix this fucking mess I’ve made.” He stares at gloved hands, black fabric carrying a red hue, even in the low light. “For me to ever be Simon again, and not just Ghost.”
Soap thinks for a long moment, then softly, “No. Not if you stop running away.” He hunkers down a little lower, blue eyes earnest, if a little pained. “Stand by me. Talk to me. Listen to me. Believe me when I tell you something, not that stupid fuckin’ voice in the back of your head. Just talk to me,” he pleads, “even if it’s just those shite jokes you have stored up, or sitting by my bed in the hospital and poking a fuckin' bruise to see if it hurts instead of harassing the goddamn atten-”
“I only poked a bruise once,” Ghost interrupts.
“Yeah, and it was a bruise over a cracked rib,” Soap retorts, shooting him a glare that holds no real weight, his eyes softer round the edges than they had been before.
“I said I was sorry,” Ghost defends.
“You said I should learn to stop the ground with my hands instead of my face next time.”
“Same difference,” Ghost shrugs, nearly jumping when Soap huffs a laugh and drops down right beside him, so close their shoulders bump together.
“My point is, as much as you’re a dour fuckin’ bastard and you make me want to tear my hair out–make a joke about how little of it I have I fuckin’ dare you–” Soap reads him like a book and shoots him a sharp glare, and the retort Ghost was brewing dies on his tongue, teeth clacking audibly as he shuts his mouth again. “I can’t stop fuckin’ thinking about you. The moment I closed that damn door all I wanted to do was open it again.”
“I’m going to hope ‘dour’ means ‘endearing and delightful’,” Ghost murmurs, leaning into Soap’s warmth, just a little, and choosing to make a joke as he processes the feelings the confession stirs up in his stomach. Ghost wasn’t the only one who’d wanted to turn around the second he walked away.
“As delightful as a dreich sky over Loch Rannoch.”
“Now you’re just doing it on purpose,” Ghost almost chuckles, watching the slightest hint of a smile tug at the corner of Soap’s lips.
“Maybe,” Soap shrugs, falling silent for a moment, “I don’t forgive you, by the way. I still think you’re a fuckwit and I want to punch you in your pretty fuckin’ face, but I can’t keep this cold shoulder bullshit up. I feel like I’m turning into you.”
“Could you get more digs in one statement if you tried?” Ghost snorts softly, nodding in acknowledgement anyway. He didn’t expect forgiveness, not when he’d nowhere near earned it.
“Sure you want to poke that bear?” Soap asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Point taken,” he rolls his eyes, “and for what it’s worth, I am truly sorry.”
“I know,” Soap gives a wry smile, “and I know there’s a lot going on inside that thick skull of yours. I just wish you’d loop me in a bit more often.”
“You don’t want to know what goes on up there.”
“We slit throats for a living, Lt.. Try me.”
Ghost holds Soap’s gaze for a long while, searching for uncertainty below his unwavering confidence, giving up when he’s unable to find it. Eventually, he nods. Lt, his brain echoes. Two letters that change everything.
Maybe he can do this. He felt like he’d spent his whole life protecting others, sacrificing his own wants for fear of getting hurt again. Maybe it was time Ghost stopped doing what he thought was best for them, and did what Soap thought was best instead. They trusted each other with their lives, they could trust each other with their hearts again, in time.
Maybe he could break the cycle his father had started with his mother, all those years ago. Maybe he was not his father’s son. Maybe things that were broken were not lost, just changed.
He’s pulled from his thoughts suddenly, when the tiny sliver of his neck left uncovered by his mask is tickled by hair as a head comes to rest upon his shoulder.
“Simon?” A soft voice calls out to him.
His heart flutters in his chest. “Mm?”
“Promise me something?” Soap murmurs with a yawn, unconsciously shifting closer.
Anything. "What?"
“Never decide what mistakes I get to make. If falling for you is one, then so-fuckin’-be it.”
“I promise, Soap," Ghost vows.
“Fuck that sounds weird. Call me Johnny.”
Ghost chuckles. “I promise, Johnny.”
It was strange. Whoever knew a mistake could feel so good?